


If I Say I Need You

by snsk



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Romance, Telekinesis, Telepathy, healer!Niall, mutant AU, seer!zayn, winged!liam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-02 21:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snsk/pseuds/snsk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an au wherein Harry can read minds but tries very hard never to read his sunshine electric boy's, even when they're spilling out, tumbling over each other like puppies.</p><p>featuring Zayn drawing the future, Liam with wings and Niall healing a broken nose or two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"I'm not hungry," Louis told them, pushing his fish and chips away.

"You are, though," Harry said without thinking. He could feel the hunger rolling off Louis in waves. It didn't feel like the kind of strong emotion Harry needed to put effort into blocking.

Still, Louis turned accusing eyes on him. Harry said quickly, "I can hear your stomach," because Louis had always been touchy about this. Harry was pretty sure Louis knew Harry would never delve into his thoughts and emotions on purpose, he was just prickly about that. And he was especially prickly today.

Louis let it go, though, although Harry knew he could usually tell when Harry was lying. He played with his fork and knife. He lathered the white plastic edges of the fork with mayonaise. 

"Why don't you want to eat?" Liam enquired, frowning. Harry could've told him to not ask, because it wasn't often Louis got like this, quiet and angry and not-eating, not-talking, so far from his usual theatrics when someone had offended his honor or the like, and when he did get like this, he was the last person who'd want to volunteer information about what had got him so upset. But he doubted Liam would've listened. He would've asked anyway, because he worried.

"Leave it," Louis snapped, much more venom than was necessary.

Liam left it.

Lunch was silent after that, neither Zayn nor Niall speaking up either, Harry trying, very hard, to block the constant low-level anger that Louis was emanating. He knew, most probably, that it wasn't directed at any of them, knew that he had to respect what Louis wanted, which was to deal with whatever it was on his own, but it still made Harry so, so jittery, made him want to beg, Louis, let me help. Louis, let me in.

:::

Three hours ago, they'd been at class.

Zayn was doodling something on Louis' notes. Just a stick man, complete with a huge dick. Wanking hard, from what Harry could see on Louis' other side. Louis was sniggering, elbowing Harry, causing Professor Franco to look disapprovingly over his glasses at them but turn back to his notes on the transportation of RNA proteins. Louis mimed the stick man's frozen-on-paper action, and Harry grinned.

The stick man was a cartoon. Zayn didn't draw real, detailed things, except for his private lessons with the mystery dude who came to the Institute twice a week and specialized in Zayn's type of power. When he was younger, Louis had told Harry once, he'd drawn lots of real-looking things, some he hadn't even seen in his mind's eye before he put them on paper. A few months later, he'd realized some were coming true - the worst ones. The girl on the edge of a bridge. The destruction of an island in a hurricane.

Zayn's power, he drew things that were definitely going to happen, but the lessons were so he could use his drawings to alter them here and there. Maybe control the damage, a bit.

Louis had said, Zayn says he hates it.

Does he? Harry had asked.

I think he loves drawing, was all Louis had concluded, and the droplets of water he'd been lazily manipulating from the lake had fallen fresh and quick onto Harry's upturned face, signifying the conversation was over. 

Harry had blinked through the blurry wetness in his eyelashes, watching Louis laugh. Eyes the same color as the lake.

So - three hours ago, and Louis had been a-ok. Class had let out, and they'd had Sports next.

Sports at the Institute was basically a whole bunch of kids running around and letting off steam and doing what they wanted, while the teachers in charge tried to prevent mass murder. They didn't have specialized sports teachers, because they weren't an actual Institute. So. Chaos, for an hour. 

They walked onto the field and Louis rolled a football over from a few meters away. He passed it to Zayn. Harry settled himself on a nearby bench, because he had no coordination whatsoever, there was no use keeping up any pretense about it. He looked up at the sky. He could sleep like this, with the soft drone of Louis' teasing trash talk on Zayn's football skills. 

Niall's face hovered into view, and three things happened in order:

Harry opened his mouth to greet Niall hello;

a golf ball hit Harry's nose, sharp, from where Tom Parker was showing off his mad breathing power to a girl he fancied by blowing golf balls all over the field;

in his dazed and bleeding pathetic state Harry was still aware of Louis', "What the actual fuck," quick crunching of the grass, soft fingers on his face, "Ni, fix him up," and then a furious, "Parker! You and me've got some shit to figure out, mate!!"

Harry tried to sit up, but Niall was holding him down, palms cupping his face, and there was a sickening crunch and okay, there, nose fixed. 

"You still need t'go to the hospital wing, though," Niall said, looking at him critically. 

"Okay," Harry said, "just, tell Lou to leave it-"

"Don't think that's happening, mate," Zayn said, crouching beside him. Harry hadn't noticed his getting there. "Ball could've done some damage to your eyes, or your skull, like."

They all watched Louis swearing at Tom Parker for a bit.

"Yeah, but it doesn't have to -" Harry started, but stopped and sighed at the blow Louis had just dealt Parker, along with what he was very sure was "Next time it'll be a cannon to your balls, a'right?" 

Tom Parker and gang looked less than pleased.

"Never mind," said Harry. Zayn and Niall were already jogging there, but Harry was still feeling too dizzy to walk, much less participate in a brawl, which required the kind of coordination he didn't have on his best day. He tried, anyway, and fell on his newly-repaired nose in the dirt. 

"Harry?" Liam's voice sounded maybe a few minutes later, and then, "oh, not again."

"Get them to stop it," Harry mumbled into the fresh smelling grass.

"Harry," Liam said, pulling him upright, "when have I ever managed to tell them to do anything? There was this time with Zayn, once, perhaps, when I made him eat his veges, but that's pretty much the scope of it."

There was a crowd already, and Liam was already going over, no matter what he said. Louis and Zayn and Niall ended up in detention, and Liam visited Harry in the hospital wing. They were keeping him under observation for a bit for signs of concussion. 

"How're they?" asked Harry. "How's Louis?"

"They're fine, or they'd be here with you, don't you think?" asked Liam, shaking his head. He shifted uncomfortably against the back of the metal hospital chair and Harry remembered he'd had a long training day yesterday, had seen him outlined against the sky with Jade as the sky turned a fiery orange. His wings had been a rich brown against Jade's bright lavender, and the colours in the air had been so, so pretty. They'd been doing laps, Liam had said at dinner, and Louis had laughed, "Training for the London Marathon, then?" and flicked some corn at Liam.

"They seem pretty pleased with themselves," Liam reflected, but he was curving his mouth up probably unintentionally, and Harry knew he would've been right there beside them if he'd arrived a couple of minutes early. "They'll be let out for lunch."

:::

That was three hours ago. This was after lunch, and Louis was striding off to their dorm, not waiting for any of them. Harry had class with Caroline now, but he hovered with indecision.

"What's-"

"I don't know, mate," Zayn said, face creased up in worry that still looked elegantly perfected. "His phone rang, 's all I know. And he went to the loo to take the call, and then the bell rang for lunch. Know as much as you do."

Louis probably wanted to be left alone. But Louis didn't have a great track record with dealing with things that truly upset him. When his grandmother had died in a meaningless car accident, the only adult who called him Tommo and mailed him mocha muffins every month, he'd stoically replied, "I'm good, I swear," for two days before a hundred meters of wire fence separating the field of cows behind the Institute and the Institute was found twisted and mangled, impossible shapes.

Louis hadn't meant to. He'd lost control.

"Tell Caroline I'm still concussed-like," Harry told them, and went after Louis.

:::

"Styles," Louis said, tired-sounding. He was just sitting, back against the desk by his bed, looking out through the window. "You have class. Your head alright?"

Harry went over to him, even if he wasn't sure it was allowed. He settled down beside Louis but didn't touch yet, just stared out at the empty field, the one beyond that where the cows grazed.

"I haven't thanked you for Parker," Harry said. "Although I feel like a princess every time you do that. You didn't have to."

"You /are/ a princess, princess," Louis replied automatically, so that was something, at least. "And Parker had it coming."

"We don't have to talk about it," Harry said.

"I know we don't," Louis told him. 

The sun was bright today, and the tiny cows looked like they were sweltering. 

"Later, maybe," Louis said eventually, quieter. He looked small, small and sun-bright, when Harry sneaked a sideways glance at him. There was a bruise forming dark and murky on his forearm, where it was wrapped around his legs. Harry knocked his knee against his, and didn't move after that.

:::

At dinner, Louis was back to normal, which meant he performed a not-apology on Liam by rubbing wet cold fingers from the tap under Liam's plaid shirt, making him yelp, and then proceeded to animatedly tell the not-quite-filled-up dining hall about how he'd kicked Tom Parker's skinny arse.

"You didn't, Tomlinson, stop making up atrocities," Parker shouted from across two tables, having entered and caught the tail end of "swear to god, squealed like a stuck pig-". "Rematch anytime you want, let's go."

"I'll pass," said Louis, digging into his mashed potatoes with relish. 

"Scared?" Parker taunted.

 "Sparing you the humiliation," Louis said lazily. "Horan, pass me the chicken, what're you hogging it for? Don't answer that. Just pass me it."

"Don't want to defend your girlfriend's honor anymore?" Parker asked, because he wouldn't give it up, would he. Harry flushed a bit, he didn't know why. It probably had something to do with the fact that his honor had to be defended in the first place, mishaps and him being as synonymous as they were. Or the use of the word "girlfriend," which wasn't a big deal, since he and Lou - weren't, but.

Louis didn't miss a beat. "True, yeah, I can't speak a lot about honor, considering what /your/ girlfriend screamed in my ear last night."

"Lou," Liam sighed, and Niall sniggered, and Parker gestured at Louis with a drumstick, "Do you want to-"

"Parker, sit down," said Professor Franco, walking into the hall. "Tomlinson, stop aggravating him. Good god, can't we enjoy a nice dinner in peace?"

Harry passed Louis the chicken. Louis grinned at him, tilting his head at Parker. Harry felt himself dimple back, instinctive. So maybe Louis - well, defending his honor made him feel a bit fluttery in his stomach. It wasn't like, he was doing it because Harry was his girlfriend or anything. 

Boyfriend, was what he meant.

God. 

Fuck Tom Parker.

:::

Louis didn't talk about it for four days and three nights. They had classes as usual, and on Wednesday Professor Rai gave a speech on, like. Times shifting and changing, and overcoming prejudice with peace, doing the right thing, and making decisions with morality. Or something like that. It sounded pretty standard. Liam was listening carefully, but then Liam always listened carefully. Louis was playing Hangman with Zayn on Harry's knee, and the Sharpie tickled where Louis was writing on his skin.

 On the fourth night, Louis got into Harry's bed, just after Harry had drifted off to almost- sleep, and whispered, lips cold against the back of Harry's neck, "Haz. Harry, wake up. I want to go to the tower."

It took Harry a minute or two, but he said, groggy, "Why didn't you go after dinner?"

Louis was pouting into Harry's neck, Harry could feel it. "Cause, Haz. Andromeda and Sirius only align in perfect composition to Jupiter at -" he shifts a bit, probably to check the clock - "One sixteen am."

"You're just saying random astronomy terms," Harry sighed, but he let Louis pull him up anyway. He tugged on a beanie and draped a smaller, colorfully-patched blanket over his shoulders, which he was sure had been hand-knitted by Liam's mum.

"So fragile," Louis sighed, waiting for him by the door. He was in his grey hoodie, and the sweatpants he was wearing - Harry's - were rolled up at the ankles. He looked small, and soft, and sleepy, and very determined to be awake. Harry rested his head on his shoulder as they walked as quietly as possible to the tower. Normal rules weren't as strict here as normal boarding schools, responsibility for the powers being the top priority, but obviously wandering around aimlessly at midnight was discouraged, especially if you were two teenage boys and one of you had been in love with the other for three years.

Louis petted at Harry's hair when they let themselves in, Louis having lazily turned the lock from outside with a twist of his fingers in midair. Harry got off and settled onto the floor, and Louis peered through the telescope happily.

"Look, Haz, Claudius is bright tonight," he said.

"That's not even a star," Harry said, watching him sleepily. The tower had transparent glass windows from every side, and Louis looked beautiful in starlight.

"Skeptic," Louis tutted. "And there, that's Optimus."

"Yeah?" said Harry, but he wasn't looking through a telescope, so he looked at Louis instead.

"Yeah," Louis confirmed. "That's Julio and that's Tabithius." He stared through the telescope intently. Harry wanted to pull him in by the hood of his jacket, spin him around to kiss and be kissed. "Tabithius was a cat once."

"An orange kitty," Harry mused, arms warm in the blanket curled around him, "with white paws."

"Who's telling the story?" Louis asked. "But okay, orange. White paws. And she caught a lot of mice, like. Hundreds in her lifetime. But her owners threw her out after an incident involving some scratched up sofas and she died on the streets."

"Tabithius," Harry murmured, sad.

"And when she died," Louis said seriously, "the souls of all the mice she'd ever caught rose up to form her outline in the sky."

"I," Harry said, "that's kind of disturbing, maybe." He liked it, though. It was a very Louis story.

"Truth is stranger than fiction," Louis told him. He smiled with one side of his mouth as he turned to look at Harry.

When he looked back, he said, eye pressed to the telescope like he was discussing the shape of another feline constellation, "My dad called the other day."

Harry was quiet, like Louis wanted him to be.

"Y'know, it started off okay," Louis said, "civil, all that. Asked me how you were, how my football was going, Liverpool's latest atrocity at Arsenal. Then he brought up, like, 'so you lot still - there, then?'" 

Louis' voice had gone posh and nothing at all like his dad's. He snorted unamusedly.

"Like it was some kind of... like we were in the fucking can, or something, you know? Then I said some things. He said some things. To make a long screaming story short, he still thinks I'm a freak of nature who should've just been put down at birth."

Louis' dad wasn't part of the group of people who were under the impression that one day, soon, the mutants were going to amass their ranks and turn the humans into slaves, and were currently calling for mass execution "before it was too late," but he was part of that larger group of people who were probably even worse, who had brains and mutant family members and would stand by and let the executions happen, if it was, quote unquote, for the greater good.

"Oh, Lou." Harry would've probably thought twice about it in different circumstances. If his blood wasn't boiling and the stars weren't aligned to Jupiter at one sixteen am and Louis wasn't standing there still looking into the telescope, his voice very careless and his pose deliberately standoffish. He knew Louis, and Louis didn't like showing weakness. 

If Harry had thought about it twice, he probably wouldn't have gone over and wrapped his arms around Louis, suffocating, and whispered, "Fuck him, fuck him he can fuckingly fuck off, I fucking love you," into Louis' ear.

Harry didn't exactly register what he'd said until after Louis had stiffened in surprise, held still for a long moment during which Harry considered backing off and apologising, and then sighed, wrapped his arms so his fingers met in the small of Harry's back. Then Harry registered the "fucking love you," and had a bit of a panic attack.

It wasn't as if they hadn't said it to each other before. Love you, boo; Is that tea? Fuck, I love you; lov ya!!! .xxx etc. But Harry had meant it, was the thing. Meant it as wide as human thought, felt it core-deep in his bones. How he loved this sunshine-electric-metal boy. He'd never said it remotely like that before.  

Thankfully, Louis hadn't seemed to notice, which was a tiny god-given miracle, and Harry relaxed, and held him, and didn't say anything. Later, they curled up into Harry's bed. Louis told him the story of how the mice had gone zombie, ate the people of Tabithius' town.

:::

Harry was in class with Caroline. Technically, Professor Flack, but the first time he'd called her that, she'd winced.

"Caroline, there's a good lad," she'd said.  "Not a suggestion, either. I don't want to be made to feel like I'm sixty, not quite yet."

"Okay," Harry had smiled, "Caroline," and she'd been awesome for three years, taught him so much about controlling his telepathy, focusing it, blocking people out, respecting their minds.

Louis, Louis wasn't quite as fond of her as Harry was. The other boys didn't really know her and didn't quite care, but Louis was always sort of stand-offish when Harry talked about her. He'd want to hear about Harry's lessons, but not about the funny thing Caroline had said about pizza. Which was a bit odd, as Harry didn't think they'd had much interaction since ever, if at all.

He'd mentioned it to the rest, once; Zayn had rolled his eyes and muttered something that sounded a lot like "dumbasses" under his breath, Liam had said, "Um, I don't want to interfere, but it's glaringly obvious," which had made Harry want to shake him, and Niall had laughed, "Nope, mate, Tommo'd kill me," which. Which. Had not helped. At all.

Harry needed new friends. 

He focused back on Caroline, who was saying, "good, Harry," after Harry had picked out an individual childhood memory, from just an incomplete phrase she'd let him read in her mind: tax returns on the eighteenth of May-. Nine-year-old Caroline, spindly legs and curious eyes, on the train to Manchester and reading about the world of finance from the thoughts of the suited man sitting across from her.

"Very good," she repeated. "Well. Have some tea, love."

Harry's vision still felt fuzzy, like it always did after he delved into other people's worlds, like the images he was looking at right now were still just memories, flashes of remembrance. He accepted the tea, grateful. They sipped it in silence for a minute.

"Harry," said Caroline, suddenly, "you heard what Delph said last week?"

She called other professors by just their names, too, which was why Harry took a moment to recall that Delph was Prof Rai. 

"Yeah," he said, slowly, "um..." He needed Liam for this. "Making good choices. Doing the right thing when it's not easy. Same thing, really. With great power cones great responsibility, and all that."

"Mmm," said Caroline, her voice serious. Harry looked at her, but she was looking out of the window. Her features were lit in the afternoon sun. She had nice eyes, crinkles at the side like Louis.

"What," Harry said blankly, "what'd I do."

"Nothing, love," said Caroline, smiling over at him. "I know you'll heed that advice, all right? Just, use those curls to influence your friends to act the same. It might not be as easy for them, they might feel like making different choices based on what they feel is right." She paused, and there was a lot more unsaid in between her words than she was letting on. "The other side, they're convinced they're doing the right thing, too. They're, it's their own version of wanting to look out for us, they feel it's only a matter of time before we all get sacrificed trying to protect those who're only human. Do you get it, love?"

Harry rubbed a thumb along the handle of his teacup.

 People's minds worked so alike, and so differently. They could believe in the exact same thing, and kill each other over the proper way of going about it.

"Think I do," Harry told her. "A bit, at least."

"All I'm asking for, kid," Caroline said. "Now please, go run along before Louis starts a fire because I'm keeping you here too long." There was a look in her eyes, gently amused like Liam's, and Harry was about to ask-

"Oh, no," she said, laughing, and Harry sometimes forgot she was one of the greatest telepaths of her time. "You figure it out yourself, love."

:::

"Enjoy yourself?" asked Louis at dinner. "Ran a bit overtime, there."

The question was easy, if you didn't know Louis. Zayn, who did, was already looking up. 

"It was okay," Harry said, careful not to mention Caroline much, "managed to pick out individual memories, was great, Lou, it was like playing Memory and you just know which two cards you've got to pick up, before this it was like, lucky guess if you managed to get two right but today, I managed to hone in, and Lou, it was amazing-"

Louis listened to Harry ramble, smiling, making normally snarky remarks. He was okay when it came to the actual lessons. Zayn turned his attention back onto Liam and Niall's nonsensical conversation about whether or not Iron Man should build The Hulk some wings.

"Absolutely terrifying," Zayn said.

"Yeah, but," Niall gestured flapping  with his hands, "fucking awesome."

Louis cut in, "You don't know what you're talking about, Payno. Fucking flying monster. Awesome." He waved his bit of sausage at Liam indignantly.

Harry still wondered, but knew better than to ask, knew so, so much better than to try to seek it out in his head. 

:::


	2. Chapter 2

:::

It was a Friday and the Institute was hosting the regional football quarter finals, or something. Of the sort. Harry certainly didn't know what it was called. Louis probably did, but Louis was bouncing off walls at this point, manic and hyped up and probably a hundred different shades of wanting to throw up.

Not probably: Harry couldn't block the nerves if he wanted to, they were spilling all over the room from where Louis was banging a terribly loud beat on the windows and getting Zayn's pillow thrown at him from across the dorm.

"Zaaaaaynie, please get up," Louis sang. "Look, Harry's up and everything. Liam's already in the shower. Niall is not here, having fled to Josh's after my beatboxing rendition of Wrecking Ball. However he has promised, in between cursing me and me great grandfather's grave that he too will be up shortly. Zaaaaayn."

"Shut up, Louis," Zayn's pink pillow said. 

"Zayn! It's today."

"Yeah? And it's four in the morning."

Louis sighed loudly. He came to Harry's bed, instead of Zayn's, where Harry was still yawning and blinking and trying to figure out the actual name of the competition. "Four twelve am, to be exact."

He flung himself on Harry's bed, bounced once and leaned down to rub his nose against Harry's. He smelled like toothpaste and too much coffee. Harry wondered how long he'd been up, how close he could get before Louis would turn away, laughing, and why he always turned away, laughing. Harry wanted him to follow through for once. Harry wanted him so much his throat ached a lot, most days.

Louis nosed back and forth against Harry's, then his cheek, then he slumped against his chest, a bit of the manic buzzing calmer now somehow. Harry put his arms around him and was very grateful his morning boner had time to go down before Louis had draped himself all around him.

"Hmm," Louis sighed happily. "Get Zayn up, Haz."

"Okay," said Harry, making no move to get up, much less get Zayn up.

"Nooow," said Louis, but he sounded comfortable and snuggly, against the worn cotton of Harry's shirt.

"On it," Harry agreed quietly, holding him close, and they both slept until the actual alarm rang at six am.

:::

At breakfast, Louis' foot was jittery against Harry's leg, his heel every so often treading Harry's toes. He ate a banana and pushed his cereal aside. Harry ate two bowls and felt milk-bloated. 

"You're going to be amazing," Harry whispered, wrapping him into a good luck hug before Louis went off to get changed.

Louis tightened his hold on Harry for a second, then let go.

He did do amazing. He scored two out of three goals and Harry didn't know how to describe them, but he could however rhapsodize about the swung angle of Louis' leg as the ball soared overhead and found the back of the net. Or the sweat dripping off Louis' glistening skin at half time. Or the intense focus in Louis' expression as he swerved through two defenders.

"Liked the game?" Zayn said teasingly as Harry coughed all the way back to the dining hall, having worn his voice hoarse from the cheering and screaming he'd done. Zayn called it shrieking. Zayn was wrong.

It was just the first leg; the second game would be played at the other school's homeground. The Institute was acting like they'd already won, though, clapping Louis on the back as he made his way to the table and wolf whistling at him, even Tom Parker, who Louis winked at and who rolled his eyes and pretended he hadn't cheered Louis on as madly as the rest of them an hour earlier.

Louis finally reached them, and Zayn said, "My stars, his lordship's dining with us," which confirmed Harry's suspicions that the Downton Abbey episodes he'd been told to download for Waliyha hadn't been for Waliyha at all.

"Leave him be," Niall ordered, poking Zayn in the side. "You got it, Tommo."

Louis slid in beside Liam and Harry and planted a huge fake kiss on Liam's cheek. 

"Get off, so sweaty," Liam complained, then barely ten seconds later, "Decent showing there, Lou."

"Love you, Payno," Louis said. "Whadja think, Styles?"

Harry rather thought he wanted Louis to cover his body with the sheen of sweat still drying off of him.

"You were awesome," he said honestly, helplessly, and while Zayn complained across the table that thanks Harry, now I can't see the teachers from Louis' head swelling exponentially, Louis ducked his head, sort of smiling, insulted Zayn's future offspring and levitated the bowl of mashed potatoes towards him. He bumped his shoulder against Harry's.

:::

"So you're going to Wellington with us," Louis' voice said into Harry's hair.

Harry sort of startled, and lifted his head fast, and Louis said "Ow, m'nose."

"Sorry, sorry," Harry said. "Hey. Thought you had practice."

Harry usually watched, bringing a book along, but he had to finish A History of Telepathy in Eastern Europe by Friday, and he couldn't pretend that he ever did anything but watch Louis at practice, books be damned.

"It's over, kitten," Louis said from somewhere above Harry. He called Harry kitten only when they were alone. Sometimes Harry thought that it was their nickname, just theirs. Other times he thought Louis just didn't want to embarrass him, nothing else.

"Okay," Harry yawned.

"You're going to Wellington, kitten." 

"Mm, I," Harry said, rubbing at his eyes and reaching absentmindedly for Louis' hand, "great, I--"

It hit him. "Wait, really? Why?"

"'caaause," said Louis. "'cause you're my good luck charm, that's why. Y'know it's during Thanksgiving break, right, so I asked Coach, and cause he loves me and there are empty seats on the bus he said yes, so you and a few other people are coming."

Harry had a very strong feeling that "'cause he loves me" constituted of Louis whining and sulking at Coach till he got his own way.

"Who's a few other people?"

"Um." Louis rested his chin on Harry's head, not sharp enough for it to hurt. "Kelsey. Freya. Olly."

Harry was horribly sure he was blushing, and was glad that Louis was on his head, fingers in Harry's hair, and probably couldn't see. Maybe. Kelsey was Tom's girlfriend, and Freya was Robert's, and Olly was Jaymi's boyfriend. And. Well. Louis didn't have a girlfriend or boyfriend at the moment, so it would make sense he'd take his best friend, and Harry should really stop blushing like he was twelve.

"And Niall's taking Li and Zayn, too," Louis continued. He reached down to nibble at Harry's ear. "So you won't be lonely."

Well then. See? Harry wasn't disappointed, he wasn't.

Louis breathed out slow, and wrapped his arms around Harry's chest. "You wanna come?" he asked. 

Harry snuggled into Louis' touch, because he couldn't not. Louis was broadcasting feelings like safe and warm and sleepy, a bit hungry. His thoughts weren't skittering about like they normally did, overexcited and never still. Sometimes he got like this around people he was comfortable with - or so Harry assumed, Harry didn't catalogue how he felt wrapped up around people who weren't Harry. He would've tried not to read Louis like this, either, but Louis seemed to want to show Harry the happy-safe-good he was feeling. God knew he was aware of how to hide it.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Yeah, I would."

:::

The bus was late because the driver was encountering some traffic on the main road, so they were waiting out front in the cold. Harry rubbed his gloved hands together and felt everyone's growing impatience skitter over his skin, ticklish. 

"He should've started earlier," Liam said disapprovingly, taking the cigarette Zayn was starting to light up out of his hands. Zayn scowled, but didn't say anything. Liam tucked the cigarette into a pocket. 

Louis was talking to Nathan a bit apart about defense striking or something, or other, or. His hands were in his pockets and he was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, trying to look less cold than he was.

Nathan nodded and said, "I got it, Cap, same as I got it the last fourteen times."

"I'm just maaaking suuure," Louis said, but he clapped Nathan on the back and drifted towards them.

"You lads excited?" Niall was asking. Zayn grunted. 

"Kelia's strong this year, and they're on home turf this time," Liam said, "but our side have definitely got the better team, if we attack early and get an away goal quick we might have it in the bag, I'm pumped."

Harry said, "Yeah. Can't wait to see some, y'know. Corner shots and hat tricks."

"He has no idea what he's talking about," said Louis, arriving. He swayed into Harry a little bit, for warmth.

"I have no idea what I'm talking about," Harry conceded. Louis smiled up at him, brighter than the watery sunlight, and the bus pulled up, as if Louis had attracted it here with sheer force of will.

During the ride, Louis tried to reenact Mel Gibson's speech from Braveheart, bothered Liam with popping noises for a bit, led half the bus in a rousing rendition of Twenty Eight Bottles, reached twelve before Coach told him to shut up and sit down, and then proceeded to lean into Harry's side, muttering dark and dire threats. They still had three hours left to go.

"Why don't you take a nap?" Harry asked.

Louis threw him a withering look. His hand was wrapped inside Harry's jacket, and his feet were curled up on the seat. He was cold, but didn't want to admit it.

"Take a nap," he repeated. "I'm not four! Stop taking your age difference out on me, baby."

"You know I brought your green sweater," Harry suggested offhandedly.

Louis lasted approximately two minutes before he went rootling into Harry's knapsack, drawing out his favorite Christmas jumper. He pulled it on, looked at Harry for a bit-- a look, like he sometimes got when he saw Harry at the end of a game, or when he woke up in the morning and didn't have his defences aligned yet. It made Harry's heart stutter. It made Harry want to kiss him a lot, here in the not properly heated bus with the football team restless and worked up, Tom Parker in the background thinking inappropriate thoughts about the colour of Kelsey's panties. Louis just looked small, in the sweater. He was achingly beautiful.

He leaned back against Harry and stole an earphone. 

It's too cold for you here, so let me hold both your hands, in.

He was calmer, after that.

 

It all started to go pear-shaped when they tumbled off the bus. The students milling about were the usual mixture of  booers and those simply curious, but there was bad blood in the air, Harry could feel it.

The thing about Kelia was that it was a normal school, one that didn't allow mutants in. They said it was tradition. Looking around, Harry could tell it was crueler than that. There was muttering, low and mutinous, along the lines of "cheat" and "mutant." The thoughts scattered around, up in the air, were ignorant, mean, a bit fearful.

The Institute's team was clothed in a sort of material that restricted their power so they could play without any chance of anything but fairness, but it didn't seem to matter to most of the students of Kelia. Harry wondered what they'd been told, been brought up to believe. Louis' mouth was set in a hard line. He reached for Harry's hand, as if he hadn't really thought about it.

The guy that came out to greet them seemed okay enough. He was polite and told Coach where to take the team, so they ended up in the locker room, all of them. They'd pushed past the crowd, who looked at them with eyes that surpassed normal team rival unfriendliness, and Harry and Liam and Zayn and the rest were about to make their way to the stands when Louis refused to let go of Harry's wrist, said, "Coach, I don't think it'd be safe."

"They'll have to go out there anyway, Louis," Coach said. His eyes were worried, anyway.

"Later. When the teachers are all out there. I don't trust them."

Coach nodded, and so they were crowded up in the lockers. The team had gotten changed, and it was oddly quiet.

Nathan said, "They really hate us."

"They're idiots," Pez said.

"Idiots that outnumber us," said Louis. He'd let go of Harry's hand, but was on the bench beside him, bleeding warmth from how close he was sitting.  He had that focused look on, the one when he wanted to move something with his mind, but he had his kit on, so he couldn't. He had this protective streak a mile wide.

"It won't come to that," Liam said, looking uncertain. "If we just-- play properly. And fair. It'll be okay."

Zayn said nothing. Harry wondered if he'd drawn something, a scrap of sketch he hadn't wanted to tell about, not-telling being one of the general rules that defined his power. The future's not something we should know, he told Louis when Louis bugged him about the weather tomorrow night.

They heard their school name being called out on the loudspeaker. 

"C'mon, guys," Louis said, and the team went into a huddle. Satanic chanting, Louis had told Harry once, when Harry had asked what was with the secretive mumbling inside the circle. They did their hand thing, and shouted the school name. Loud and proud, they said.

"Wish me luck, Harold," Louis said, turning to Harry before they left.

Harry kissed him on the cheek, because Louis was a mess of nerves and fear he wasn't even trying to hide right now. The jittery feeling broadcasted to Harry slowed, a bit. There was something akin to sunlight warming Louis' thoughts.

Then they walked out onto the pitch.

The crowd jeered. Loudly, cruelly. Harry could make out "Freaks!" and a chant that ended with "kill yourselves." The other team shook hands, but with steely expressions. Then the whistle blew, and the team began playing.

Kelia were stronger here, on home ground, than they had been at the Institute. Their defense held out better, and it was harder for Niall and Nathan to create openings for Louis to try at goal. The constant high level hate seeping through the air was also starting to get to the team's head, making their play faulty, error-spiked. At half time, it was nil-nil. The anger swirling around Harry was making it hurt inside his head.

Louis gathered the team around, and said something to them for about two minutes. The game resumed.

Harry'd never find out what he said, but the players moved more like a unit now, like they were blocking out the noise. Harry was ridiculously proud. He grinned at Liam.

Louis scored a beautiful header in the seventy-third minute. Flushed, he looked towards the stands. The game was rapid after that, and in the eighty-ninth minute, Nathan clinched it by hitting the back of the net through two huge ass defenders. 

The crowd erupted in boos. The home team collapsed to the grass. Louis' team started screaming, breathless, tangled up in each other, and Nathan was still on the other end of the pitch, staring at the ball, disbelieving, which was why he didn't see the guy from the stands climbing the barrier and heading towards him, mouthing, "fucking mutes."

The first blow caught Nathan on the jaw. The second in the stomach, and the guy kept on kicking him, even as he crumpled, even as both teams convened upon him, even as he was led off the pitch, swearing something about getting all of them one day. He just kept lashing out.

Louis got to Nathan first. He crouched over him, white-faced. Nathan wasn't moving. Niall stripped his jersey off and was able to heal the worst of Nathan's injuries in a bit, but he still left a trail of blood as he limped off the pitch.

The ride back was significantly quieter. Louis didn't make any noise; it felt as if they hadn't won the game at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah "quick updates" she said i know i know i suck pl good thing is i now know exactly where i want this story to go!!!!


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